English

English Seminars

In this course, we will assume that at UWM, and in life in general, it is not merely what you do, but how, why, and with whom you do it, that creates a sense of purpose and meaning. We will study psychology, fiction, poetry, music, philosophy, history, and memoir—a wide variety of sources that describe how we can make our lives more meaningful and satisfying.

In this class, we will ask big questions about “network enabled social tools” and try to answer them. We’ll engage in both traditional classroom activities and hands-on work, producing a class wiki and personal blogs. You don’t need to have experience with the “tools and patterns” that are used to produce the internet – just a willingness to try and to think critically about your experiences.

We’re going to start off by going to the source, way back to pre-Christian accounts of journeys to the underground and gradually make our way up to conceptions of hell in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.